


THE COLLAPSE

by CaptainNautical



Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Maybe hah, Mental Illness, POV Second Person, Psychological Horror, Relapse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-26
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:15:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24384916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainNautical/pseuds/CaptainNautical
Summary: “You’ve been pushing something down ever since you got back from Revachol. It’s been festering in you since you shook hands with Kim in the whirling. A mind project has been slowly turning like the cogs of a run down machine. A different kind of thought experiment this time. It feels different, is what you mean, but you don’t know how. It looms.You’re afraid of it.”
Relationships: Harry Du Bois & Kim Kitsuragi, Harry Du Bois/ His sanity, Harry Du Bois/Kim Kitsuragi
Comments: 7
Kudos: 35





	1. Two Months

You’ve gotten used to the voices. For the most part. Usually they flow in and out without you even really noticing. Once and a while a conversation will run on too long and a pause becomes a stop which becomes a lapse in time where you stand and argue in your head. But that’s only on occasion.

You’ve been kind to yourself lately. You’re back to work but you have a new schedule and a new partner. Jean was angry at first but you both know now that its for the betterment of you both.

Kim is like fresh air after a long winter. His presence at the 41 precinct is not only affecting you but the entire station. The unease and mistrust your presence exudes at the station is blunted by the cold hard fact that is Kim Kitsuragi. People trust you because he trusts you.

Kim has also become your roommate. You moved out of your sad apartment to rent a mildly less sad two bedroom with Kim. The split rent was enough to ease Kim into the idea of coming back to Jamrock with you. That and, even though you would never say it to him, (and likely he’d never admit it to you) you knew Kim was just as lonely as you.

You’ve also been seeing a counselor. It’s not like you have a choice. You legally have to or the station won’t let you work. But... you’re seeing a counselor. And you attend this group that claps when you say your name and how sober you are. You even have a little chip that means your two months clean.

Which is great! It should be great. Things are good, for once. For the first time in six years you feel... okay again. So things should be great.

But you’re not naive. You’ve been on this road called recovery before. You’ve fallen off the edge. You’ve turned around when it got scary and you’ve slipped when the terrain turned steep. You’ve been here now for two whole months. You know what’s coming soon. That horrible wall that hits you like a speeding car. You hear the squeal of tires in your head.

You’ve been pushing something down ever since you got back from Revachol. It’s been festering in you since you shook hands with Kim in the whirling. A mind project has been slowly turning like the cogs of a run down machine. A different kind of thought experiment this time. It feels different, is what you mean, but you don’t know how. It looms.

You sit with your counselor. It looms in the corner behind her desk.

You walk out of a group session. It lingers across the street, watching you.

You talk to Kim on the roof of precinct 41. The lieutenant slides a cigarette out of his breast pocket. The feeling burns the wrong end of his cigarette. When Kim takes a drag, it hovers in the air around you. 

You’re scared of it. 

“Harry.” A stack of papers lands solidly on your desk. It jolts you out of your stupor and makes you grip your chest in momentary surprise.

“You take a trip in the pale?” Jean says, clicking a pen rapidly as he turns on his heel and starts to walk away. He scribbles something on a note pad in his hand.

You look at the stack on your desk. Its the profiles you asked for on a current suspect. Jean took his time getting them to you.

“Thank you!” You say with a drawl, pulling your chair forward. You open the top file and start to scan it. Kim, who sits at the desk across from you, takes his feet off the corner and closes his book.

“Don’t go wandering off into the blue now, mr. two month chip.” Jean grumbles, shouldering the door to his office open and slipping in.

Something in you feels like it’s just thrown itself off a cliff. There was bitterness and pain in Jean’s voice. We’ve been here before, it said for him. You feel yourself hold the file a little harder. It creases under your fingers.

“Ignore him.” Kim, voice ever calm and stoic, leans over and gently takes the file from you.

_ Ignore him?! You should storm right in there and show him your chip. Chuck it right at his sad fucking face! _

_ You should ignore it. It isn’t worth making another scene over. _

_You already bickered over your coffees._

_ He deserved that. _

_ I’m sure the half and half in his coffee was absolutely quaking from your fury. _

_ Focus. _

“Yeah.” You clear your throat and look back down at the files.

“Are you alright?” Kim asks uncharacteristically. You raise your eyebrows and look up at him.

“Why?” You ask, a lot more terse than you mean to.

“You just seem... distant today.” Kim smiles a little. “More than usual.”

The voices all talk at once. 

_ Distant? _

_ Tell him you’ve been exploring the pale and bring back news. _

_ The city thrums under your feet and waits for you to be buried under her. _

_ Mourning, terrible, aching, mourning.  _

_ Tell him to stay out of your personal affairs since he never bothers to- _

_ Harry, Harry, Harry, we need to get the fuck out of here. Someones here and we don’t know who it is. It’s a stranger, Harrier and he’s coming for you.  _

...   
  


_**THE COLLAPSE** \- Start crying. _

_ What? Why? _

_**THE COLLAPSE** \- Cry. _

_ Don’t I get a say in this? _

Your cheeks are damp before you even know it. You touch your fingers there and look up at Kim. His face has turned into that look he gets when you throw him off guard.

_**THE COLLAPSE** \- crycrycrycrycrycrycrycry _

Suddenly you’re bawling in the middle of the precinct. White hot shame flashes in you and you struggle to stand, to leave, to escape. Kim stands with you and carefully puts his hand on your arm.

“Harry?” His calm voice betrays the concern weighing down his features.

_**THE COLLAPSE** \- First name. You really fucked up now. _

_ But you told me to- _

_**THE COLLAPSE** \- Run. _

You shake Kim’s hand off your arm and stumble forwards. You push past a concerned looking Judit and push away another officer in your way. You use every old trick in your once athletic body to sprint through the station. Your legs are humming as you stiff arm the front doors open.

It’s raining.

“Detective!” You hear a shout behind you.

_**THE COLLAPSE** \- Now, throw yourself into the ocean. _

You can see it in the distance, that wide expanse of water fading out into mysterious, other worldly fog. You see the street and the stairs it would take to get you there. Your body lurches forward. You’re going for a swim. 


	2. Body at Rest

Your standing in your apartment. More specifically you’re standing in the bathroom of your apartment. Not just yours anymore, you remind yourself. But Kim isn’t here right now.

_**Perception** \- (failure): There is water at your ankles. But it’s alright, you’re standing in the bath tub and the faucet is running. _

You hesitantly decide to sit down in the tub. The bathroom is dark and cold and as you look around it you realize it’s not your bathroom at all. It’s the bathroom from your room at The Whirling.

There is a soft clink of glass. You look down at your feet and see two beer bottles gently bumping into each other like two toy boats at the bottom of the tub. You hear some more soft clinks and look up.

The entire room is suddenly flooded and you are adrift in a sea of liquor bottles and loose pills. The tub your sitting in tips forward and you gasp as water immediately rushes to meet you. You scramble and tip and end up treading water.

The water is rising and you can’t find the source. You swim over to where the faucet is but find it’s already turned off. The water is now up to the mirror. You look at yourself frantically as a beer bottle bumps into your cheek.

Maybe... maybe a door!

You turn around to face the exit. 

_**Perception** \- (success): There is something under the water. _

A chill runs up your back and you freeze all over. Oh fuck, oh christ.

Do you even look? Do you just make a beeline to the door?

Your broken brain makes you turn your head downwards into the water under you. You see your clothes swimming about your body. You see the contents of the bathroom floating weightless and being pulled by an unseen current. You see...

You see an giant eye open below you. A second one pops open as you scream and choke on water.

You are completely submerged now, your head hits the bathrooms ceiling.

A giant mouth opens up to accompany theeyes and out of the depths of this terrible ocean you see a huge hand rushing towards you.

You thrash and panic and try to move away but theres nowhere to go.

The mouth is screaming. It has a cruel voice:

_**THE COLLAPSE** \- “HARRY. HARRY. HARRY. HARRY.” _

The hand rushes towards you and you gasp, close your eyes and brace for something you don’t understand, and-

“Harry!”

A pair of firm hands wraps around your chest and you break the surface of Jamrock Harbor. The hands are connected to a pair of arms secured under your armpits and a body that tugs you backwards as it attempts to swim with your dead weight.

“Over here!” The head attached to this body shouts. You know this voice.

_ You know this voice, Harry. _

“We see you, Lieutenant!” A higher voice replies. You can barely make this one out.

Your ears start to ring.

You’re flopped onto the deck of a motor boat. You promptly cough your brains out until what feels like a gallon of water spills out of you. Your arm holding you up wobbles and you land on your face against the hard wood.

_**THE COLLAPSE** \- Jump back in... _

You nod your head and try to crawl upwards. You move towards the edge of the boat and suddenly the talking voices are yelling and grabbing onto you and pulling you backwards.

_**THE COLLAPSE** \- You need to go back. _

“You ‘don understan...” you slur, feebly trying to wriggle out of their grasp.

“Detective, please get a hold of yourself.” That same voice replies.

_**THE COLLAPSE** \- You’re not a detective. You’re a statue at the bottom of the sea. Here lies the once great detective, your plaque will read. _

“M a... ‘m a statue at...”

You’re lowered slowly to the ground. Gentle hands (at least two sets) let your body rest against the floor boards until your just looking up at the cloudy, gray sky.

It stopped raining.

A hand turns your face towards the figure of Kim Kitsuragi kneeling beside you. He is soaking wet and shivering slightly. You can hear his teeth chatter as he opens his mouth.

“Just rest, Harry.” He says and somehow it’s as if there is no one around but you two. There is no sound but that of Kim telling you to rest. It plays on a loop over and over in your head:

Rest...

Rest...

Rest...

Rest...

Until you do.


End file.
